van bemmelen van gent legal education a new paradigm blr 2012 2-18 version 1 0

Copy of

Ernst van Bemmelen van Gent, Legal Education: A New Paradigm, Bynkershoek Law Review

(2012), p. 2-18

Ernst van Bemmelen van Gent

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Legal Education: A New Paradigm

By


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ABSTRACT

In the past, between the years 1800 and 1950, legal education was a local, generalist, apprentice-

based, non-corporate, and highly academic self-explanatory affair. Most of the legal professionals

regarded themselves as involved in ex-post private law and criminal litigation/trials. Legal theory

and the curriculum, correspondingly, could focus mainly on local private and criminal law

contained in approximately 10.000 pages.

At the start of the 21st century a number of things have changed. Around 100 specialized areas of

legal theory and practice have emerged, along with millions of pages of new material. The sources

of these new rules are increasingly international and regional, especially in Europe. The legal

profession has also industrialized. The sole practitioner is outnumbered by legal professionals that

are mass producing legal services and legislative instruments, as well as adjudicative products.

Client demand has changed the emphasis to be more focused on ex ante: preventing disputes.

Employers are expecting more than ever that graduates are well on their way through this increased

volume of material, plus well versed in critical thinking, advocacy and research techniques.

Moreover, in the countries where legal education is subsidized, universities are expected to educate

more pupils for less money, plus accepting lower entry qualifications favoring historically less

privileged groups. This process includes attempts, again especially in Europe, to harmonize the

higher education degree structure across states.

Law school traditions have not responded to these developments yet. The curriculum and teaching

techniques have remained largely the same as in the 1800 to 1950 era.

The time is ready to change legal education drastically. To guide and justify that change, a modern,

21st century paradigm is required, addressing what the legal profession entails, what issues the legal

profession deals with and what legal competences are required, to solve legal problems cheaply,

efficiently and in a client friendly manner. Such a new paradigm should also provide the necessary

assessment criteria evaluating, which law graduates may be permitted access to legal practices,

including the various professional bodies admission procedures but also corporate hiring practices

for junior and senior positions.

Bynkershoek Law Review (2012), 2-18

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This article provides such paradigm. It describes and defines the legal profession along four types of

legal practices that exist all over the world. It identifies the “top 55 legal issues” that are most

fundamental to any legal practice. It selects 50 areas of law that are necessary for instruction in law

schools. More importantly, it argues which 6 legal skills/competencies should be the guiding tool

for curriculum and assessment design, as well as the criteria for recruitment, life-long learning and

career development in the legal profession. Furthermore, the new paradigm for legal education

integrates the global ambitions (UN, OECD, G20) in the fields of sustainable development and rule

of law into the daily reality of the legal profession, legal education and legal research.

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ARTICLE

This article is the revised version of a presentation given by the author during the 25-27 May 2012

Osgoode Forum on Legal Practice And Legal Theory Discourse – Critical Views Of Education And

Research, as organized by the Osgoode Hall Graduate Law Students’ Association, Toronto, Canada.

The author is a licensed attorney-at-law at the bar of the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands and legal educator in the International Bachelor of Law Program of The Hague

University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands. This article is the result of research

done within the framework of the Bynkershoek Research Centre on Legal Education, of which the

author is the director.

The reasons to start a career in legal education are my experiences in The Netherlands, as well as

and in the German and Caribbean academic and legal environments. In my legal career, I have had

the pleasure of working together with lawyers from around ten different jurisdictions and finding

out that the legal profession is similar all over the world. Yet, I discovered that in the set-up of our

education and professional regulatory framework, certain important differences prevail, stemming

from the segregation stimulated by Napoleon’s Europe of 1800. My drive is to create a new

approach to the question of differences and similarities and to help implement that in legal

education and the legal profession worldwide. The justification of such intention lies in the tasks all

professionals should derive from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/2 also known as

the Millennium Declaration, namely putting the rule of law at the center and aiming at access to

justice to all. So, the customers – if I may call them that way – should be leading and not the

profession. And today I will present an avenue to get us there.


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My current activities capitalize on the reality of The Hague as “legal capital of the world”, with its

large community of legal professionals from all over the world, working in the famous courts: ICJ,

ICTY, PCA, Iran-US Claims Tribunal etc. I call their work “fusion kitchen lawyering” because they

cooperate, take the best parts of their respective legal traditions and create a new and better concrete

system that actually puts war criminals behind concrete bars or settles disputes between adversaries

like Iran and the USA. The findings of this article are to be considered to form the basis of a reform

of legal education.

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Introduction

In short: reforms in legal education and consequently in legal theory & research continues to be a

hot topic. The debate will improve if we acknowledge that law school prepares for more legal

professions than that of the attorney-at-law/solicitor/barrister or equivalent. I will therefore give a

new definition of the legal profession (A). Furthermore, to assess the value of any proposed

changes in legal education I will provide a short overview of the changes in the profession, society,

young employees and employers (B), as well as changes in learning methods (C) in order to identify

the problem to which eventual changes might be the answer. This answer is Law School 4.0: a

newly designed all inclusive law school that prepares for all junior positions in all Legal Practices

(D). As guideline to the required outcome of such new curriculum I present to you a new efficient

competence matrix (E). I conclude to present to you a selected list or “canon” of legal issues, that

forms a method to determine what the content of (initial) legal education should be (F).

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A. Some crucial definitions

Putting the citizen that undergoes a legal system, or putting the customer of legal services at the

heart of the reasoning, I have to re-define the word legal profession. In doing so, I argue that all

persons that as a normal day job produce legal products (objective criterion) and regard themselves

as jurist (subjective criterion), are to be considered Legal Professionals. On this point, I am

inspired by the variety of ways people become a jurist on the globe: from eight years of state funded

and examined academic legal education to no legal education at all, from a heavily regulated and

test based mechanism to a liberalized market mechanism.


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This definition requires also a definition of Legal Product: a piece of writing or oral presentation

that deals with legally relevant facts and questions, that engages with sources of law to answer these

questions and that comes to conclusions that focus on legal consequences, like “guilty” or

“innocent” (in criminal law), “liable” or “not-liable” (in contract and tort law). A top twelve of

Legal Products is: (1) advice letter, (2) advice meeting, (3) summon letter, (4) indictment, (5) writ,

(6) court pleading, (7) court judgment, (8) contract, (9) deed, (10) legislation/act of parliament, (11)

executive branch directive/order, (12) academic article. Legal Professionals are further to be

categorized as working in four distinctive practices. These four Legal Practices are: (1)

Governmental Legal Practice, (2) Private Legal Practice, (3) Corporate Legal Practice and (4)

General Interest/International Organization Practice. The distinction between these practices lies in

the interest each practice represents, ranging from that of the state, the individual person, an

enterprise and the society at large respectively. Furthermore, the distinction in four practices helps

to identify the requirements or competencies a Legal Professional should have. All in all, these

definitions helps to approach the following discussion on the Legal Profession from a broader

perspective than the “JD or LLM plus bar exam” perspective.

Article 9 of the IBA General Principles for the Legal Profession requires each jurist to be

“competent”. Here we enter the realm of the current conference on legal theory & education. The

key question is when a person should be allowed to act as a jurist and to produce Legal Products,

given the reality that this question matters in the light of the effects wrongful Legal Products can

have on the lives of people. Why is this question a relevant question? Because the landscape

changed dramatically, both in terms of the expectations of all Legal Practices and in terms of the

expectations of the society. I argue that the current system of couple of years legal education and a

bar exam does not satisfy these expectations and needs, as others argue also.

B. Changes in Legal Practice

The changes in the Legal Profession I refer to are (1) the increase in total numbers of Legal

Professionals, (2) the increase in the use of legal services by the communities on the globe or the

awareness that relationships could be seen through a legal perspective and corresponding

procedures, (3) the democratization of legal knowledge through the internet, (4) the increased

service level demand of customers due to among others email, (5) the tendency to create Legal

Products in teams, (6) the tendency to specialize in niche areas of law, (7) the increase of

transnational aspects in many Legal Practices, and more generally (7) the hope of each employer

that candidates are ready to produce value as of day one.


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From the perspective of the society I can add moreover (1) the expectation that Legal Products are

taking the socio-economic situation or cultural sensitivities into account, (2) the expectation that in

the creation of Legal Products knowledge and insight of other disciplines are taken into account, (3)

the expectation that for instance judges avoid tunnel vision or narrow-mindedness in their

appreciation of evidence, (4) the expectation that also disadvantaged persons can have access to

justice, (5) the expectation that Legal Products should be cheaper, and more generally (6) that the

Legal Profession is becoming more and more demystified. Moreover, the expectations expand also

in the area of compliance with (7) United Nations standards, (8) good citizenship, and (9) ethical

standards.

Now that we will discuss legal education today, I wish to add the expectation of students also: (1) to

have a dynamic student time, (2) to be enlightened, (3) to meet depth, and (4) to be prepared for a

job as Legal Professional. And expanding into the early years of a career, young Legal Professionals

expect job satisfaction in terms of (5) realization of personal goals, (6) adherence to ethical

standards, (7) room for flexibility in working hours, and (8) flexibility in changing to other Legal

Practices.

In the long list of expectations towards Legal Professionals, the expectation of each employer may

not miss: (1) analytical skills, (2) creativity, (3) experience (or wisdom), (4) knowledge of relevant

areas of law, (5) research and learning skills, and in broad terms (6) professionalism.

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C. Changes in learning methods

The scope of this article does not allow to dwell on the pedagogical innovations of the last few

decades. Important topics as learning style, teaching style and assessment methods are discussed in

a wealth of literature. I focus on learning outcomes. And I focus on problem based learning in the

sense that I present to you today, a method, a “canon”, how to identify problems, read: legal issues,

that should be included in (initial) legal education, with the exclusion of other topics, ultimate to the

detriment of current faculty structures.

I do compare law school to other professional education, like music conservatories. Very telling, the

success of that education is measured 100% on the outcome: is the graduate able to perform Mozart

& Beethoven to the liking of the public or not. Similar to that, also graduating jurists should be able

to have the equivalent outcome: to produce Legal Products in a competent way, regardless whether

that legal education is labeled undergraduate or graduate, LLB, LLM or JD, and/or regardless

whether it takes 3, 4 or 5 years. The alternative is less persuasive, being the outsourcing of


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important parts of the legal education to the employer, who translates the costs of same to

unjustified or at least undisclosed higher prices of the Legal Products.

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D. Law School 4.0

As interim conclusion I could say that a young Legal Professional should meet an enormous amount

of expectations. Despite all the changes in the current law schools, among others in the law schools

of North America, we need new guidelines to create Law School 4.0. Guidelines to educate such a

new type of Legal Professional, to determine whether a person is competent and, in doing so to

influence the Legal Profession along the way, where that is required given these mentioned

changes.

And obviously, the purpose of these guidelines is to make choices. If we would take all the 30

topics of expectations mentioned earlier as separate areas of learning no one will finish law school

within 20 years.

In the following I will demonstrate an efficient matrix of competencies. This new matrix establishes

a link between the wider definition of all 4 Legal Practices and key Legal Products and educational

or pedagogical innovations.

[P.S. Law School 3.0 is the current status quo of legal education, with its partial innovations. Law

School 2.0 is the legal education in the period of say 1800 to 1989. Law School 1.0 is referring to

the period before 1800.]

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E. Bynkershoek Competence “Matrix” – A Greek Temple

In general terms the legal industry has produced a few standards in the context of learning

outcomes. I refer to the recent Carnegy 2007 Law School Report and the European 2002 Dublin

Descriptors, with respectively three general standards (Analysis, Skills, Ethics) and five standards

(Knowlegde, Application of Knowlegde, Judgment, Communication, Transfer). Although these

standards for learning outcomes are appealing and covering indeed the essence of the legal

education, both are too broad to function as a guideline, and lack any system related to the actual

work in Legal Practices. As alternative I present here the Bynkershoek Competence Matrix, which


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could function as such general concrete guideline for law schools. Each competence is defined as a

cluster of knowledge, skills, insight and attitude.

This matrix can be visualized by a Greek temple, with (1) General Professional Competencies and

Language as fundament. The columns of the temple represent (2) Legal Analysis, the thinking as a

jurist. This thinking is one of the universal features of the Legal Profession. Not un-similar to the

tradition of all judges, being a central Legal Profession, this Legal Analysis consists of the diagnosis

of the legal issue, with the determination of the legally relevant facts and legal relevant questions.

Subsequently, the applicable law is identified and through deliberations and by testing the elements

of the legal rules on the facts, it is established what answer to the legal questions should be given.

The Legal Analysis ends with the important step of a jurist to come to a decision or conclusion.

Another description of the steps of Legal Analysis is the abbreviation I.R.A.C., used in North-

American Law Schools.

Legal Analysis is as such a mental process. The roof of the Greek temple, consists therefore of the

abstractions of the Legal Products, that Legal Professionals make on the basis of their competence

to do Legal Analysis. Three classic categories of Legal Products are identified, which are

corresponding with the life circle of a legal problem, and a fourth category. The first result of Legal

Analysis is the competence of (3) Legal Advice. In this category the letters of advice and advice

meetings fall. The second result of Legal Analysis should be (4) Legal Representation. In this

category the summons, indictments, writs, pleadings etc. fall. Subsequently, many legal problem or

procedures end with the competence of (5) Legal Regulation. This category consists of Legal

Products as judgments and legislation/acts of parliament, as well as contracts, deeds and other

arrangements between private actors.

No system without exceptions. If no concrete interest is at stake or in all other situations that these

three competencies do not cover the work of a Legal Professional, the competence of (6) Other


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Legal Products & Research is available. This competence consists of Legal Products like academic

articles, objective writing within a legal organization (memorandum) etc.

It is not so difficult to imagine the specific characteristics of these competencies, since they appeal

to both the process of analysis in the Legal Profession as to the production of Legal Products.

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F. Bynkershoek Legal Issues & Rules “Canon” – A Gyroscope & Map

It is now time to address the last topic of this article, which is triggered by the question, what topics

we should deal with or what law we should teach in a law school. We have devoted time now on

what a Legal Professional is, what the expectations are from the “customers” and we have defined

the competencies a Legal Professional should poses. But these are all abstract concepts. Obviously,

and almost not contested, the heart of each Legal Professional consist of knowledge of the law or

the knowledge of potential answers to legal questions.

What do we mean with that, now that more than 100 times more law and laws exists since the

design of the current law school system, now that most law graduates do not remember precise parts

of the law that was taught in law school anyway? How should we make a selection out of the about

one million legal issues and rules that can exist in any given jurisdiction?

In quite a few jurisdictions this question is partly subject to the regulatory framework of the

profession of bar licensed lawyers. There, constitutional law, criminal law, contract law and tort

law, both substantive and procedural, are the measure stick. But that only applies to the academic

phase of legal education. In subsequent professional pre-bar-exam education other elements of the

competencies are developed, like writing, advocacy and general professional skills. In my

presentation, and ambition to create a general guideline for the design of legal education, selection

of Legal Professionals and life-long learning, I go beyond this regulatory framework, now that in

many jurisdictions it is under pressure and producing a rather confusion picture of the quality of the

Legal Profession word wide, given all its variations.

I argue that a “canon” of legally relevant issues would help this discussion, and allows to form Top-

10, Top-15 or Top-100 lists that can guide the design of 3, 4 or, say, 8 year curricula. The benefit of

such “canon” is also, that all types of issues are identified, prior to looking at the current status-quo


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of law, which status-quo depends on what parties now deem necessary to litigate on or what

parliaments now deem necessary to legislate on.

The “canon” of legal issues can be visualized by a gyroscope. In the center of the gyroscope a disc

appears, with on that disc the division on four Legal Practices.

The axis of the gyroscope represents all the issues of human beings. One “gimbal” of the gyroscope

represents the issues of governments, one of enterprises and the last “yellow gimbal” represents the

issues of the society at large.

On this axis and on these gimbals specific topics can be projected, which are listed below:

ISSUES OF HUMANS (Axis of Legal Gyroscope):

1. Birth

2. Family

3. Food & Water

4. Health & Education

5. Property

6. Labor

7. Housing

8. Goods & Services

9. Development & Expression

10. Death


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ISSUES OF GOVERNMENT (Gimbal of Bynkershoek Legal Gyroscope):

1. Status & protection people

2. Territory (Defense of)

3. Constitution

4. Judicial Branch

5. Parliament

6. Administration & tax

7. Other Agencies

8. Health & Education

9. Criminal Justice

10. Infrastructure

11. Economy & Trade

12. Development

13. Property (registration)

14. Reserve

15. Transnational cooperation

ISSUES OF BUSINESSES (Gimbal of Bynkershoek Legal Gyroscope):

1. Incorporation

2. Organs

3. Capital

4. Investment – R&D

5. Labor

6. Markets

7. Production

8. Regulators

9. Creditors

10. Taxation

11. Corruption

12. CSR

13. Liability

14. Insolvency

15. Liquidation

CHALLENGES OF OUR AGE (Gimbal of Bynkershoek Legal Gyroscope):

1. Overpopulation

2. Poor health

3. Food & Water shortage

4. Endangered animals

5. Climate change

6. Energy crisis


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7. Weapons

8. Corruption

9. Inhuman treatment

10. War

11. Poverty

12. Gender inequality

13. Freedom of belief

14. Access to education

15. Failed states

As a summary of these legal issues I can mention: birth, death, health, labor, property and

contracting as topics typically relevant for every individual person; I can mention the defense of the

territory, the administration of justice, the collection of taxes and the fostering of economic

infrastructure as classic domains of any government; I can mention the articles of incorporation, the

issuing of shares, the responsibilities of agents, the development and distribution of products and

services, the payment of taxes and the dealing with litigation as dominant legal issues around

enterprises; and I can mention the potential over population, nuclear arms, shortages of water and

food, wars, poverty, gender inequality and limitations to freedom of belief as issues of our time. In

total this “canon” lists 55 issues.

Each issue can be subdivided in corresponding legal questions: around the issue of birth, legal

questions on the birthing itself, legal capacity and nationality can be asked; around the issue of

property legal questions on acquisition, disturbance of neighbors and hypothec can be asked; around

the issue of taxation, legal questions on the taxable subject matter, exceptions and collection can be

asked. If all of the 55 issues are subdivided in three, the result is a first batch 165 legal questions

and corresponding legal rules. As example, if you would want to give law students a one year

introduction to relevant topics in the Legal Profession, and a year would be 40 study weeks, less

assessment time, so say 30 lecture weeks, each week should then contain 5,5 topic, a bit more than

one per day. If we would increase the amount of legal questions with 100% we would end of with a

bit more than two topics per day.

To go back to the symbolic gyroscope, as visualization of the structure of the Legal Profession, with

the Legal Practices as disc, and various groups of legal issues as ax and gimbals, we miss a crust or

cover of the globe or spherical ball that the gyroscope is. A graphic representation of such crust

could be given by a map of the globe like picture:


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On that crust or cover we project the areas of law and their respective legal rules.

If we imagine a miniature person, a Legal Professional, on a part of the disc of the gyroscope, that

person can look up, and will see the axis and gimbals as issue to solve and the parts of the crust or

cover, as a sort of sky or celestial sphere on which legal rules appear as stars in the night, which

legal rules and principles form the heart of the solution.

Faithful to the ambition to keep and foster the good parts of legal tradition, I argue that the order of

these legal rules may follow the well known division of areas of law we all know: public law,


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criminal law, private law, with all its subdivisions. I suggest repeating that division three times: one

time for the international level, one time for the regional or federal level and one time for the state

level. An example of such division is presented in readable for below.

RELEVANT AREAS OF LAW INTERNATIONAL LAW Public International Law * Sources & Actors/LIO * Human Rights Law * Maritime Law * Trade Law * Environmental Law * Asylum & Migration Law * Investment & Tax Law International Criminal Law * Humanitarian Law * Special Tribunals Law * ICC Law Private International Law * Children, Family, Property Law * International Cooperation Law (in procedures) * Commerce & Finance Law * Conflicts of Law * Arbitration Law * Etc.

REGIONAL LAW (Example EU) Public European Law * Institutional Law * Human Rights Law * Judicial Review Law * External Relations Law * Internal Market Law * Environmental Law * Investment & Tax Law * Migration Law European Criminal Law * Standard Setting * Europol & Eurojust European Private Law * Consumer Protection Law *European Cooperation (in procedures/conflicts of law) * Commerce & Finance Law * Competition Law * Etc

NATIONAL or STATE LAW National Public Law * Constitutional Law * Human Rights Law * Administrative & Tax Law * Administrative Procedure Law * Environmental Law * Economic & Trade Law * Social Security Law National Criminal Law * Substantive Criminal Law * Criminal Procedure Law * Evidence Law National Private Law * Civil Procedure Law * Family Law *Corporate Law * Contracts & Torts * Competition Law * Labor Law * Real Estate Law * Banking & Insurance Law * Intellectual Property Law *Consumer Protection * Media Law * Telecommunication Law * Arbitration Law * Conflicts of Law * Etc

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What does this all mean? I will now conclude.

There are enough good reasons to innovate legal education, to contribute to the emancipation of the

legal profession as global profession and to expect more of each and every Legal Professional. To

that end it helps to stop talking about one Legal Profession, but to divide the profession in four

Legal Practices, distinct in their interest, in who is paying and partly distinct in their products.


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It is also helpful to make a down to earth description of the types of Legal Products that are

produced. At least 12 classic Legal Products are presented.

Furthermore, it is crucial to identify the competencies that are needed to produce these Legal

Products in a 21st century fashion, paying tribute to the expectations of society, customer, young

professional and employer. A total of 6 key competencies are defined, visualized by a Greek

temple.

The heart (or columns of the temple) of the these competencies are formed by legal reasoning with

the focus on finding and using the relevant legal rules. Given the limited time of any initial legal

education, and the availability of at least 1 million of these relevant legal rules in any given

jurisdiction, a method is needed to make a sensible selection. To that end, four groups of issues are

presented to you: issues of humans, states, enterprises and society at large.

It is argued that each cluster of issues holds countless legal questions. A top three each, produces

already 165, a top six, produces a total of 330. The legal corresponding legal rules to these issues

can be found in the existing areas of law, be them public, criminal or private and being these areas

of international, regional or national origin.

This presentation and these categories could serve as design options of legal education. In this

article I present the corresponding choices made by the International Bachelor of Law Program of

The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands:

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COURSE OVERVIEW THE HAGUE LAW SCHOOL Year 1 & Year 2 (Mandatory Introductory Courses - 3 ECTS)

Year 1 Public International Law History & Institutions EU Introduction to Law Skills-1 “Reasoning & Citation” Study & Career Coaching-1 Project -1 “Model UN”

Constitutional Law EU Decision Making Courts & Litigation Skills-2 “Case Solving & IRAC Study & Career Coaching-2 Project -2 “EU Financial Crisis”

International Organizations Internal Market Law Corporate Law Skills-3 “Economics” Study & Career Coaching-3 Project -3 “New Business”

Human Rights Law EU Private International Law** Comparative Criminal Law Skills-4 “Logic & Arguments Study & Career Coaching-4 Project -4 “Capital Punishment”

Year 2 Int. Environmental Law EU Finance & Development Law Contract Law Skills-5 “ADR” Study & Career Coaching-5 Project -5 “Skagerak Oil Spill”

International Criminal Law European Criminal Law Tort Law Skills-6 “Advocacy & Persu.” Study & Career Coaching-6 Project-6 “ICC Moot Court”

International Trade Law EU Competition Law Property & IP Law Skills-7 “Economics (2)” Study & Career Coaching-7 Project -7 “Due Diligence”

International Labor Law Migration**/PRIL Family Law Skills-5 “Advice & Regulation” Study & Career Coaching-8 Project-8 “A Family Problem”

Year 3 (Advanced Courses – “Minor/Elective Courses” – 5 ECTS) (Each year only 60 ECTS are required)

Specialization Public International Law & Human Rights

Theory & Sources of PIL Civil & Political Rights International Labor Law -

Law of Int. Organizations (2) Environmental Treaty Drafting Social & Economic Rights -

Use of Force Human Rights Enforcement Gender & Law Refugee Law

NATO & International Security Terrorism International Dispute Settlement -

Paper (Project-9A) + Skills-9 + SCC-9 Project-10A (Moot Court) + SCC-10 + Skills-10

Specialization International Humanitarian Law & International Criminal Law

IHL: Principles & Rules Individual Responsibility ICC & Other Tribunals-Quarter10

Enforcement of IHL Core Crimes (Genocide & Human.) Rights of the Accused

Theory & Sources of ICL Evidence Prosecution in ICL

Core Crimes (Aggression & War) ICL Procedures Alternatives to ICL

Paper (Project-9B) + Skills-9 + SCC-9 Project-10B (Moot Court) + SCC-10 + Skills-10

Specialization European Law

EU Public Law Internal Market Law (2) Competition Law (2)

Intellectual Property Law (2) Procurement Law EU Procedural Law

EU Environmental Law EU Criminal Law (2) EU Consumer Protection

European Fundamental Rights EU Foreign Relations Law (2) EU Tax Systems Compared

Paper (Project-9C) + Skills-9 + SCC-9 Project-10C (Moot Court) + SCC-10 + Skills-10 Specialization Commercial Law

Princ & Rules of Investment Law Corporate Law (2) Princ & Rules of Tax Law -

Corporate Social Responsibility Arbitration Private International Law (2) -

Theory of Regulated Markets International Taxation Investment Dispute Settlement Contract Drafting

Multinationals & Corruption Insurance & Finance Internet & Telecommunication -

Paper (Project-9D) + Skills-9 + SCC-9 Project-10D (Moot Court) + SCC-10 + Skills-10

Other Minors, Electives & Exchange

Minor Global Justice (30 ECTS) OR 3345 University Minors & Electives Project European Union Moot Court, Exchange to national law school

University Minors & Electives Project Harvard MUN, + Project Telders Moot Court, Exchange to national law school

Year 4 (Advanced Courses – “Minor/Elective Courses” – 5 ECTS) (Each year only 60 ECTS are required)

Year 4

Internship (30 ECTS)

Law & Economics (5 ECTS) Law & Practice (5 ECTS) T

Law & Ethics (5 ECTS) LLB-Thesis (15 ECTS)

Including: Skills-11 + SCC-11 Including: Skills-12 + SCC-12

OR ALTERNATIVELY: OR ALTERNATIVELY:

Law & Economics (5 ECTS) Law & Practice (5 ECTS)

Law & Ethics (5 ECTS) LLB-Thesis (15 ECTS)

Internship (30 ECTS)

August – November November – February February – April April – June


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It is also the starting point of further deliberations and research how these 165/330/660 etc. topics

can be taught best. When, where and at whose expense further education and entry to the Legal

Professions should be organized.

There was no time to address the crucial aspect of skills training, but remember, each Legal

Competence contains an important skills element. Also, time was not available to address the

important issue of assessment and the formative and summative versions of it.

I trust further research will be able to fill in those spots and I invite all to contribute to the further

development of these ideas.


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Please direct comments to: [email protected]

van bemmelen van gent legal education a new paradigm blr 2012 2-18 version 1 0

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